GejiuWade-Giles romanization Ko-chiucity, Pinyin Gejiu, city in southern Yunnan sheng (province), China. Ko-chiu It lies near the Vietnamese border and is the site of China’s most important tin-mining industryoperation.

Ko-chiu Gejiu was originally a small mining settlement called Ko-chiu-chiehGejiuli; mining of silver was begun there under the Yüan Yuan (Mongol; 1206–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties. Mining in Yunnan boomed in the late 17th and 18th centuries, but tin mining in Ko-chiu Gejiu did not develop until the second half of the 18th century. In the 1880s the city was created a sub-prefecture under Meng-tzu Countysubprefecture under Mengzi county, about 19 miles (30 km) to the east. In 1889 Meng-tzu Mengzi was opened as a treaty port, its trade being almost entirely with Hanoi and Haiphong in what was then French Indochina. One of the main purposes in constructing the French-built railway from Haiphong to K’un-ming Kunming (Yunnan), completed in 1910, was to service the mines. A branch line branchline was built from Ko-chiu to Meng-tzu Gejiu to Mengzi between 1915 and 1928. During the last years of the Ch’ing Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12), the mines were organized by the ChineseKo-chiu owned Gejiu Tin Company, but the company was deficient in capital, technical skill, and managerial efficiency and was replaced by a joint state–private state-private company, the Ko-chiu Gejiu Tin-Mining Company, under which production boomed. By the 1930s , Ko-chiu Gejiu tin accounted for 80 percent of the traffic exported on the railway. In 1938 tin Tin production is said to have reached 10,000 tons .Under the Communist government, in 1938.

After 1949 management passed to the state Yunnan Tin-Mining Corporation, which by 1955 had reached and surpassed prewar production figures. In addition to mining tin, which remains the chief product, Ko-chiu Gejiu has also become a major producer of lead, and a thriving metallurgical industry has been developed. Tin articles made in Gejiu are highly acclaimed in China. Coal for smelting is supplied to the city from K’ai-yüan nearby Kaiyuan to the north, located on the rail line to K’un-mingKunming. There is some engineering and chemical production closely allied with Ko-chiu’s Gejiu’s metallurgical industries. Pop. (1985 2002 est.) city proper, 189,900; city, 337,700218,652.